A report published Jan. 17 says the number of immigrant children separated from their parents at the border last year is unknown and the number given out by government officials at the end of 2018, saying that 2,737 children were separated, is not accurate. The number may be much higher.

Some had been on the road for weeks, others for days, and some entered looking haggard and sunburned with little more than the clothes they were wearing, some holding the hands of their children as a group of Catholic bishops joined a chorus of hands applauding in welcome.

The bishops of the Catholic Church in the United States have for weeks expressed outrage and condemned the government’s recent practice of separating children from a parent or a family member if they’re caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border without legal documentation.

Some have taken their indignation all the way to the border between the U.S. and Mexico, while others have taken action closer to home, protesting while accompanied by their children and fellow parishioners in cities and towns across the U.S.

The Mexican bishops’ conference criticized U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to deploy National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border and issued a strong defense of migrants, saying the Catholic Church could not stand by “in the face of suffering by our brother migrants as they seek better conditions by crossing the border to work and contribute to the common good.”

On the day that marked the fifth anniversary of the election of a pope who has called on others to “build bridges, not walls,” the president of the United States toured Southern California to look at prototypes for a wall he promised to build on the border with Mexico.

After two days of a gathering of bishops whose dioceses are along the U.S.-Mexico border and the apostolic nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, a joint statement was released speaking to the plight of immigrants and their pastoral needs.

Church leaders in the United States and Mexico acknowledged the need for governments to keep their country secure but said two recent U.S. presidential actions could endanger the lives of immigrants and split border communities.